There is disclosed a button for an operator control arrangement, in particular for an operator control arrangement of a domestic appliance.
There is also disclosed an operator control arrangement including a panel, a housing, a printed circuit board and a button.
Further, there is disclosed a domestic appliance including a button.
In order to be able to operate a domestic appliance, it generally has operator control elements, in particular buttons, which are arranged on the domestic appliance as part of a panel arrangement—also called the system panel.
While switches were previously understood only as being a technical necessity, it has now been recognized that the operability of a domestic appliance, and in the process in particular the operation of the buttons, has a considerable influence on a decision to purchase said domestic appliance. For example, users expect both pleasant tactile feedback and also visual feedback when operating the button.
However, in addition to the customers' wishes, the buttons also have to fulfill further technical functions, including, primarily, safe and reliable transmission of an operating force to an electrical switching element which is associated with the button. Furthermore, the operator should be protected against an electric shock and the button or the associated electrical switching element should be protected against mechanical overloading by the user. Since modern switching elements, in particular microbuttons, generally do not have a sufficient restoring force, it is necessary to employ additional structural measures in order to return the button to an idle position again after it has been operated.
The prior art discloses a large number of switches and buttons which, together with a switching element, both provide a switching function and also offer illumination in order to provide for an operator control side of the switch or of the button. Merely by way of example, the two following documents will be discussed in this respect.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,090,791 shows a fiber-optic switch with self-illumination. The switch comprises a casing in which a touch-operated switch is guided. The touch-operated switch can be displaced against a spring. Waveguides which can guide light from a light source to an operator control side are arranged both in the casing and in the touch-operated switch. Different waveguides can be coupled to one another depending on the position and the orientation of the touch-operated switch relative to the casing.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,901,836 shows a switch having an illuminated knob. This document proposes providing a light guide in the form of a cylinder in a mechanical switch, said cylinder having a beveled surface. This makes it possible to fit a light source on the side, that is to say outside the region of the mechanism of the switch, and to couple the light out of the light source, via the beveled surface, into the light guide. The light then exits at the other end of the cylinder at an operator control side.
Even if the switches and buttons of the prior art can already realize different functional features, including the required illumination of a button, production of such buttons has now become extremely complex.
However, this is incompatible with general cost pressures which are also encountered in the market for domestic appliances. Therefore, attempts have been made to dispense with specific functions, including, in particular, the illumination of a button, but this has not been accepted above the low-price sector. Attempts to offer desired functionalities in simplified form have created the feeling amongst customers of the product having a lower perceived value.